Shelf Awareness for Thursday, August 13, 2009


Del Rey Books: The Seventh Veil of Salome by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Dial Press: Whoever You Are, Honey by Olivia Gatwood

Pantheon Books: The Volcano Daughters by Gina María Balibrera

Peachtree Publishers: Leo and the Pink Marker by Mariyka Foster

Wednesday Books: Castle of the Cursed by Romina Garber

Overlook Press: How It Works Out by Myriam LaCroix

Charlesbridge Publishing: If Lin Can: How Jeremy Lin Inspired Asian Americans to Shoot for the Stars by Richard Ho, illustrated by Huynh Kim Liên and Phùng Nguyên Quang

Shadow Mountain: The Orchids of Ashthorne Hall (Proper Romance Victorian) by Rebecca Anderson

News

Notes: Sony E-mbraces ePub; Journal Wary of B&N Deal

Today Sony will announce that it will sell e-books only in the open ePub format and will scrap its proprietary anticopying software in lieu of Adobe software that restricts how often e-books may be copied, the New York Times reported. As a result, e-books bought for the Sony Reader will be readable on most other e-book readers, except for Amazon's Kindle, which operates on a proprietary format. Later this year, Sony will introduce a new e-reader that allows wireless downloads of e-books a la the Kindle.

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Today's Heard on the Street column in the Wall Street Journal gave Barnes & Noble low grades for its impending purchase of Barnes & Noble College from B&N chairman Len Riggio:

"Digital sales, now becoming a reality, arguably could cannibalize print sales of expensive college texts more than other books.

"True, college book sales are growing, unlike the broader market. But comparable-sales growth at the college chain dropped in the latest fiscal year to 1% from around 4.5% in each of the prior two years.

"As for earnings, Barnes & Noble has provided only numbers for the year to May with no history or projections. Shareholders deserve to know whether the college chain's earnings are declining. Barnes & Noble says it will disclose more when the deal closes, which is a little late.

"It doesn't help that Mr. Riggio is being paid partly in notes bearing an interest rate of 8% to 10%, even though Barnes & Noble has a cheaper revolving credit line available. Or that the head of Barnes & Noble's 'independent/non-affiliated' board committee reviewing the deal is a former Barnes & Noble executive."

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Effective August 13, Larry Norton, the former publishing sales executive, is joining Borders Group as senior v-p, merchandising and distribution, reporting to Anne Kubek, executive v-p, merchandising and marketing.

For the past two years, Norton has been president of Larry Norton & Associates. Before that, he was with Simon & Schuster for 13 years, most recently as president of the sales and distribution division. Earlier he worked at William Morrow for 12 years, where he began as a sales rep and was promoted to v-p, sales.

In a statement, Borders CEO Ron Marshall said, "Larry's depth of experience within publishing and supply chain management is critical to Borders as we address our strategic priorities, including re-engaging with customers as a serious bookseller and improving execution in our stores and throughout our entire organization."

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Mountain of controversy.

The Cartoons That Shook the World by Jytte Klausen, a September book about the 12 cartoons that appeared in a Danish newspaper in 2005 and led to protests around the world by many Muslims because they depicted Muhammad in a satirical way, will not include the drawings--or any other images of Prophet. According to the New York Times, after consultations with a variety of people who predicted that including the cartoons would cause more violent riots, publisher Yale University Press made the decision because the cartoons are available on the Internet and publishing them would be gratuitous, as director John Donatich told the paper.

The author "reluctantly" accepted the decision not to publish the cartoons but was "disturbed" that no other images of Muhammad will appear. A scholar in the field called it "idiotic" not to include the cartoons in "a definitive account of the entire controversy."

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The ugly protests against health care reform spilled over to a reading last night by Senator Barbara Boxer at Book Passage in Corte Madera, Calif., for her new novel, Blind Trust. According to the Contra Costa Times, while Boxer spoke inside the store there was a "swarm of dozens of protesters outside waving signs, shouting and banging on the windows, hoping to get Boxer's attention in the ongoing debate over healthcare reform."

People had to buy a copy of the book to be able to attend the event, and at least one protester did so, leading to this exchange between Boxer and James Urquhart of Santa Rosa, which "drew a round of laughter," according to the paper.

" 'Your book is going in the trash as soon as I get home,' Urquhart said.

" 'Well, I'm glad you bought it,' she retorted."

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An update on the closing of Powell's Bookstores' South Loop location (Shelf Awareness, August 10, 2009): The Chicago Tribune reported that "co-owner Brad Jonas said he and his partner have bought a new warehouse near Midway Airport. The contents of both the South Loop location and another wholesale warehouse will be consolidated into the new facility."

"We are very sad to leave Burnham Park, but it's not because we got inappropriately pushed out," he said. "It's that the market has moved along and for what we do, we can do it cheaper at this building we're buying."

Jonas called business at his stores "vibrant, even as brick-and-mortar booksellers across the country grapple with the migration of sales to the Internet. Powell's also has an e-commerce operation."

"We're selling a lot of books on the Internet," he added. "We're happy to have those sales, but we are also really sad to lose our customers whose faces we've gotten to know."

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"Literature helped me emotionally," Olivia De Leon, owner of Nueva Libreria México, San Francisco, Calif., told Mission L@cal, which reported that "De Leon doesn't mind whether her Latino community reads tabloid magazines, classical novels, or sappy romances and in her selection she also includes People en Español, El Secreto del Éxito: Donald Trump, Huevos Verdes con Jamón or Green Eggs and Ham."

"What's most important to me is that they read," she said.

Mission L@cal noted that "customers across the Bay Area visit her store for its rare selection of Mexican and Latin American literature, but also the other offerings."

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In a Hartford Advocate piece headlined "Connecticut retreats from the madness," columnist Alan Bisbort wrote about his addiction to a pair of used bookstores: "On many Saturday mornings, I load the trunk of my car with whatever used books are piling up in my basement and drive to Whitlock's in Woodbridge or Niantic Book Barn in Niantic. Some of this is a holdover from the days when I sold books at a flea market in Washington, D.C., and, before that, worked at a bookshop on Capitol Hill. Most of it, however, results from my chronic case of bibliomania. I don't want cash for the old books. I want to trade them for more books. I just can't seem to ever have enough books."

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For Graham Fudger, reading extracts in public from 11 of the 13 books on the Man Booker Prize longlist "before giving copies of the books to members of the public" was a great way to use his "his hour on Trafalgar Square's fourth plinth," the BBC News reported.

Fudger was one of 2,400 people chosen to participate in Anthony Gormley's One & Other Project, which asked "the people of the U.K. to occupy the empty Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square in London, a space normally reserved for statues of Kings and Generals. They will become an image of themselves, and a representation of the whole of humanity," according to the project's website.

"I was terrified, but I loved it," said Fudger of his hour upon the plinth. "It's a great historical environment and the experience is totally different to reading alone. You want to do justice to each of the books, as you are interpreting other people's work. . . . I feel the prize is important as it brings things you wouldn't normally hear to the public's attention. It helps to put good writers from the Commonwealth forward."

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Will Davis, author of My Side of the Story, chose his "top 10 literary teenagers" for the Guardian, which noted: "Love 'em or hate 'em, the teenager is a popular character in fiction--hey, we've all been there. But for writers, the teen is a classic tool for exploring situations and issues from a neutral viewpoint, one as yet unbiased by the rigidity of adult perception. One thing's for sure: they aren't going away."

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At the 35th anniversary celebration in November of feminist bookstore Charis Books & More, Atlanta, Ga., guests will include bell hooks, Gloria Steinem, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Alice Walker, Pearl Cleage and Indigo Girls, the Southern Voice reported.

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At a meeting of the Bookbinders' Guild of New York on Tuesday, September 8, Richard Sarnoff, co-chairman of Bertselmann and president of Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, will speak on the future of Google Book Search. As chairman of the Association of American Publishers, Sarnoff was deeply involved in the Google settlement.

The meeting will be held at Random House, 1745 Broadway in New York. Beer, wine and hors d'oeuvres will be served beginning at 5:30 p.m.; the program starts at 6:30. Admission: $50 for members of the Bookbinders' Guild of New York and $60 for non-members. For admission and more information, go to bookbindersguild.org

 


HarperOne: Amphibious Soul: Finding the Wild in a Tame World by Craig Foster


Health Care Debate: The Benefits of Visiting a Bookstore

From the blog of historical fiction author Jessica James, a contribution of sorts to the debate about health care reform: five reasons why visiting a bookstore can be good for your health.

1. A book specialist can help you find just the right book--with no co-pay.

2. You don't have to pay a deductible at a bookstore, and the value is unbeatable.

3. Bending over, standing up, crouching down to look at the bottom shelf is good exercise. (Repeat as necessary.)

4. Carrying a large stack of books to your car is great for cardio and muscle-building.

5. Books provide entertainment, promote a sense of wellbeing and insure you will have something to read in the waiting room.

 


Park Street Press: An Autobiography of Trauma: A Healing Journey by Peter A Levine


Media and Movies

Media Heat: The Road to Woodstock

Today on Fresh Air: Nelson Lichtenstein, author of The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business (Metropolitan Books, $25, 9780805079661/0805079661).

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Saturday morning on the Today Show: Michael Lang, author of The Road to Woodstock: From the Man Behind the Legendary Festival (Ecco, $29.99, 9780061576553/0061576557).

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Saturday on NPR's All Things Considered: Alex Dryden, author of Red to Black (Ecco, $25.99, 9780061803864/0061803863).

 


G.P. Putnam's Sons: Take Me Home by Melanie Sweeney


This Weekend on Book TV: The Road to Woodstock (Again)

Book TV airs on C-Span 2 this week from 8 a.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Monday and focuses on political and historical books as well as the book industry. The following are highlights for this coming weekend. For more information, go to Book TV's website.

Saturday, August 15

10 a.m. For an event hosted by the Northshire Bookstore, Manchester Center, Vt., Michael Lang talks about his book, The Road to Woodstock: From the Man Behind the Legendary Festival (Ecco, $29.99, 9780061576553/0061576557). (Re-airs Saturday at 9 p.m.)

4:15 p.m. James Lovelock, author of The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning (Basic Books, $25, 9780465015498/0465015492), contends there is nothing we can do now to stop the earth from getting hotter and it's time to concentrate on how to save ourselves. (Re-airs Sunday at 4:15 a.m.)

10 p.m. After Words. Monica Crowley interviews Brian Jennings, author of Censorship: The Threat to Silence Talk Radio (Threshold Editions, $24, 9781439154427/1439154422). (Re-airs Sunday at 9 p.m., and Monday at 12 a.m. and 3 a.m.)
    
Sunday, August 16

8:30 a.m. Kelly H. Johnson, author and editor of A Better Man: True American Heroes Speak to Young Men on Love, Power, Pride and What it Really Means to Be a Man (Brandylane Publishers, $25.95, 9781883911843/1883911842), discusses her collection of interviews and essays from prominent men considered to be role models. (Re-airs Sunday at 6:30 p.m.)

11 a.m. Kentucky natives Silas House and Jason Howard, co-authors of Something's Rising: Appalachians Fighting Mountaintop Removal (University Press of Kentucky, $27.95, 9780813125466/0813125464), tell stories of a generations-long battle against the coal industry's mining methods. (Re-airs Sunday at 11 p.m.)

1 p.m. Andrea Batista Schlesinger, author of The Death of Why: The Decline of Questioning and the Future of Democracy (Berrett-Koehler, $16.95, 9781576755853/1576755851), highlights people and places across the country that are trying to keep students curious and engaged. (Re-airs Monday at 1 a.m.)

10 p.m. David Faber discusses his book, And Then the Roof Caved In: How Wall Street's Greed and Stupidity Brought Capitalism to Its Knees (Wiley, $26.95, 9780470474235 /0470474238).

 


Movies: The Diary of Anne Frank

David Mamet will write and direct an adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank. Variety reported that Disney had acquired the film rights and that Mamet "will use the famed diary, and the original play by Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich . . . Mamet brings his own original take on the material that could re-frame the story as a young girl's rite of passage."

 


Books & Authors

Awards: Thurber Prize, Financial Times Goldman Sachs Finalists

The finalists for the $5,000 Thurber Prize for American Humor are Lamentations of the Father by Ian Frazier, I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley, Wrack and Ruin by Don Lee and The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death by Laurie Notaro, the Associated Press reported. The winner will be announced October 1.

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The longlist for the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award, which honors "the book providing the most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues," is available at ft.com/bookaward. The winner will be announced in London on October 29.

 

 



Book Review

Children's Review: All the World

All the World by Liz Garton Scanlon (Beach Lane Books, $17.99 Hardcover, 9781416985808, September 2009)



All the small moments connect to a larger shared experience, Scanlon's (A Sock Is a Pocket for Your Toes) words and Frazee's pictures seem to say. A conch shell on the book's title page places readers on the beach, and the scenes that follow (as with Frazee's A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever) create the leisurely mood of nature's ebb and flow. "Body, shoulder, arm, hand/ A moat to dig," the book begins, as a boy and girl use pail and shovel, and vignette illustrations track their progress. In a slightly larger picture, opposite, the girl gives her mother "a shell to keep" as her father holds a towel nearby and the boy inspects their impressive sand castle. Then Frazee lets out all the stops, and a page turn reveals a full-bleed full-spread illustration of a rocky peninsula as the family drives away in a red pickup, with another family near a yellow house nestled in a cove, and ocean waves breaking against the shore: "All the world is wide and deep." In the background, on the right of that same illustration, white tents appear, and they become the destination for the next group of characters--beekeepers and farmers ("Hive, bee, wings, hum/ Husk, cob, corn, yum!/ Tomato blossom, fruit so red") who set up the fruits of their labors under the tents ("All the world's a garden bed"). The phrase "All the world is old and new" inspires a full-spread painting of an elderly gentleman playing with a pup and toting a seedling, while children play on an age-old majestic tree whose limbs seem to bend down to form a ladder; one can imagine that the elderly gentleman once climbed that tree. This yin and yang interplay continues, as the kitchen staff in a local cafe earn the same stage time as the patrons, and "All the world is cold and hot" suggests not only a reference to the menu's items, but also the restaurant as a cozy refuge from the rain outside. As the day winds to a close, the community gathers for music making (and "Babies [are] passed from neck to knee"). The children who made the sand castle snuggle with pillows in their PJs. "Hope and peace and love and trust/ All the world is all of us" appears with the closing image of the girl from the opening beach scene. She brings us full circle, her closed hands concealing that single shell that contains within it the sound of an ocean. Masterful.--Jennifer M. Brown

 


The Bestsellers

Top Titles in Chicagoland Last Week

The following were the bestselling titles at independent bookstores in the Chicago area during the week ended Sunday, August 9:

Hardcover Fiction
 
1. The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
2. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
3. That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo
4. Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon
5. The Amateurs by Marcus Sakey
 
Hardcover Nonfiction
 
1. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
2. Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
3. Fergie by Ferguson Jenkins
4. Dancing to the Precipice by Caroline Moorhead
5. Catastrophe by Dick Morris
 
Paperback Fiction
 
1. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
2. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
3. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
4. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
5. Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
 
Paperback Nonfiction
 
1. Julie & Julia by Julie Powell
2. My Life in France by Julia Child and Alex Prud'Homme
3. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
4. When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
5. Ask Me About My Divorce by Candace Walsh
 
Children's
 
1. Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer
2. Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
3. 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher
4. Princess Prissypants Wishes the World Pink by Ashley Evans
5. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Do-It-Yourself by Jeff Kinney

 

Reporting bookstores: Anderson's, Naperville and Downers Grove; Read Between the Lynes, Woodstock; Book Table, Oak Park; the Book Cellar, Lincoln Square; Lake Forest Books, Lake Forest; the Bookstall at Chestnut Court, Winnetka; and 57th St. Books; Seminary Co-op; Women and Children First, Chicago.

[Many thanks to the reporting booksellers and Carl Lennertz!]

 


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